TBILISI - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Thursday criticised UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for recommending Georgia shut down a youth camp near its breakaway region of Abkhazia.
"I want this to be heard by all bureaucrats at international organisations: We do not need hapless and immoral advice and friendly consultations where we are told that we need to move the camp away from the Abkhaz border," Saakashvili said during a visit to the camp, according to a statement released by the presidential administration.
In a report to the UN Security Council in July, Ban recommended the camp be relocated to "reduce the possibility of incidents."
The report called on Georgia and Abkhazia -- a strategic corner of Georgia that broke away during fighting in the early 1990s -- to take concrete steps to improve cooperation in security, economic and humanitarian matters.
Georgia has set up a number of "patriot youth camps" in Abkhazia's upper Kodori valley, the only part of Abkhazia controlled by Tbilisi.
The camps are part of a wider effort by Saakashvili to attempt to reassert his government's control over the rebel region.
A UN mission known as UNOMIG -- 121 military observers and 12 civilian police officers -- monitors a ceasefire agreed by the two sides in 1994.
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09/06/2007 21:53 GMT